Hands-On Training
Protégé Short Course
June 23–26, 2026
Stanford, California, USA
This two-and-a-half day Protégé Short Course provides a comprehensive introduction to ontology development and the OWL 2 Web Ontology Language using the Protégé toolset. Most of the course is hands-on. Participants will learn how to navigate the latest version of the Protégé and WebProtégé toolsets, which support the full OWL 2 standard.
The course is taught by members of the Protégé team. Enrollment is limited to ensure optimal learning experiences.
Target audience members include everyone who wishes to develop or enhance their skills for building OWL ontologies using Protégé. The course can benefit both beginners with no prior experience and intermediate users of Protégé Desktop or WebProtégé.
Topics
- ✓ Steps in the ontology development process
- ✓ Semantic Web technologies, e.g., OWL and RDF
- ✓ OWL 2 language, reasoning, and querying
- ✓ Collaborative ontology development
- ✓ Import from spreadsheets and other data sources
Detailed topic list
Introduction to Ontologies and Ontology Engineering
- Knowledge Representation on the Web: Motivation and examples
- Definitions of ontology
- Rationale for ontologies: why build ontologies, example applications and usage
- Basic components of an ontology
- Introduction to course running example
- Knowledge Engineering Techniques: defining domain and scope, competency questions, card sorting, identifying domain terms
- Ontology modeling approaches: generic and application ontologies, ontology design patterns
- Testing ontologies: competency questions as tests, validation strategies
Introduction to Protégé
- The Protégé user interface: tabs, views, lists and sections
Introduction to OWL
- Where OWL fits into the Knowledge Representation landscape
- Basic OWL terminology: Classes, Object Properties, Data Properties, Annotation Properties, Individuals, Datatypes, Literals, Complex Class Expressions, Axioms
- Entailment, Inference and Automated Reasoning
- OWL Profiles (OWL2EL, OWL2QL and OWL2RL)
- The Resource Description Framework (RDF)
- OWL Syntaxes and the relationship to RDF
Hands on OWL
- Entities and entity naming strategies
- Classes: declarations, owl:Thing, owl:Nothing
- SubClassOf axioms, class hierarchies and terminology
- Entailment, reasoning, and automated computation of class hierarchies
- Annotation assertions for metadata: literals, language tags, referencing external information, working with SKOS and Schema.org
- Representing relationships at the class level: object properties, SomeValuesFrom (existential restrictions), property hierarchies, HasValueFrom
- Combining complex class expressions: IntersectionOf (And), UnionOf (Or), OneOf (Enumerations)
- Class definitions: EquivalentClasses axioms, primitive and defined classes
- Negation in OWL: ComplementOf (Not), disjoint classes axioms
- Representing relationships at the instance level: individuals, PropertyAssertion axioms, property chains, domain and range axioms
- Understanding the Open World Assumption (OWA)
Fees
Regular
$2,300
Student
$400
Fees include a 120-page course manual, course materials, and lunch.
The student rate requires proof of current enrollment at a higher education institution. Registration at the student rate will only be approved after documentation has been submitted.
Register
Registration will be opening soon.
Venue
3180 Porter Drive
Room B107
Palo Alto, California 94304
USA
Stanford Research Park
The main entrance to the 3180 Porter Drive building is at the rear of the building. (The entrance at the front of the building is locked and only accessible with a keycard).
Travel
Parking
You can park for free around the back of the 3180 Porter Drive building where the course will be held.
Shuttle
Stanford provides a free Shuttle Service for getting around the campus, known as "The Marguerite". The Research Park line (RP) stops in front of the 3170 Porter Drive building where the course will be held.
Hotels
Preparation
Please download and install the latest version of Protégé Desktop (version 5.6.8 or later) before the course begins.
A laptop is required for hands-on exercises. Please ensure your laptop is fully charged and that you bring a power adapter.
Schedule
The detailed schedule will be posted closer to the course date. Here is a general outline of what to expect:
Day 1
Introduction to ontologies, knowledge engineering techniques, and getting started with Protégé and OWL
Day 2
Deeper into OWL: class expressions, reasoning, and hands-on modeling exercises
Day 3 (half day)
Collaborative ontology development with WebProtégé, advanced topics, and open discussion
FAQ
Do I need prior experience with ontologies?
No. The course is designed for beginners through intermediate users.
What should I bring?
A laptop with the latest version of Protégé Desktop installed, and a power adapter.
Is lunch provided?
Yes. Lunch and a 120-page course manual are included in the course fee.
What is the cancellation policy?
Cancellations received before the deadline will receive a full refund minus a processing fee. Please contact the organizers for details.